


Nobody Cares That You're Broken

by bakers_impala221



Series: Codas [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean, Bunker, Bunker Fic, Coda, Confessions, Dean Winchester - Freeform, Depression, Fallen Angel, Guilt, Happy Ending, Hurt, LGBTQI, Love, M/M, Pansexual (?) Cas, Requited Love, Romance, Shame, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, alternative season 12, angel - Freeform, castiel - Freeform, proper discussions, season 12, suicidal cas, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:02:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21807127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakers_impala221/pseuds/bakers_impala221
Summary: Cas is in pain. A lot of pain. And he wants it all to end. He thinks of seeking help, but the only help he could ever want is from the man who doesn't care. The one who told him himself that he didn't; that no one does."Do you remember when I told you I thought I might kill myself? I am going to do it now."
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Codas [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756792
Comments: 26
Kudos: 108





	Nobody Cares That You're Broken

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Desperate Times](https://archiveofourown.org/works/967405) by [vodkasam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodkasam/pseuds/vodkasam). 



> Extra note: an alternate version of the beginning of season 12. Sam was never kidnapped, Mary has not returned, and Cas and Crowley aren't teamed up to find Lucifer. Sam and Dean are back at the bunker like normal, and Cas is staying with them
> 
> Major trigger warning for suicidal ideation and suicide in general.  
> 

Castiel sighed, leaned his head back against the headboard of the bed, the only furniture of an otherwise empty guestroom. He looked at his legs, stretched out on the grey bedsheets, clad in his trademark business pants. He listened to the dull thrum of silence around him. The thin layer of dust he’d disturbed in his movements settled back on the covers, tiny flecks landing gracefully on the smooth black cotton.

He looked around at the room, dim, the ceiling light seeping in from the hallway the only light source. At the crescendo of footsteps, Cas glanced over at the doorway as a friendly giant's shadow swung side to side and emerged from behind the wall and into Cas' limited range of sight. Sam glanced up once as he walked, continuing on for a moment before halting. He swung back on his leg mid-step.

He turned to face into the room, slightly hunched over and leaning against the doorframe. He smiled.

‘Hey, Cas. What’re you doing in here?’

Castiel leaned forward and looked to the ceiling in thought. He frowned. ‘Oh, I just thought I’d sit in here for a while, out of the way.’ He looked down at the bed he’d stretched out on. ‘I, uh… I don’t sleep anymore, of course. But to be honest, I kind of miss it.’

Sam nodded.

‘Well, you’re welcome to be in here, obviously,’ he said, and gestured to the room. He leaned back a little, shifted his weight as he took a breath. ‘But hey, you’re not at all in the way here, Cas. You know that, right?’ he said, his arm reached towards the angel in a friendly gesture.

Cas smiled briefly, nodded slightly.

‘Thank you, Sam.’

Sam lifted away from the doorframe. He waved a little, gave him a small smile, before he departed, continuing on in the direction of the kitchen, presumably for his early morning dose of coffee.

Cas sighed again, then shifted. He turned until his legs were hanging over the mattress. His stare was blank, watching the now-empty hallway momentarily. He looked down again and reached slowly with his feet to toe on his shoes.

With both on, he stood up, turned pull the sheets back into place. Bed creaseless, evidence of his brief residence erased, he trailed out and into the kitchen where he was greeted by the two brothers. Both sat at the table, evidently tired, but in companionable silence.

Dean looked up from his breakfast burger and nodded subtly in greeting, mouth bulging with excess food. Sam typed into his keyboard from across the table, a news tabloid spread out across the screen, a picture of a young child in the corner.

‘Well,’ he announced suddenly, ‘I think I’ve got us a case.’

Interest piqued, Dean set down his food as he looked up to listen. He then reconsidered, picked it back up again to take another bite.

‘What is it?’ he asked through a mouthful, words muffled.

Sam gave him a half-appalled look before looking back his the computer. ‘Local town, two vics; mother and daughter. Both found dead in the woods when they didn't return from their camping trip five days overdue. Both liver and kidneys missing, literally ripped from their bodies. Cops are callin’ it an animal attack, telling locals not to worry, et cetera...’

‘Sounds like our kind of thing,’ Dean said, finally having swallowed a huge bite and scanning the room. He jumped from his chair. ‘Be ready in ten,’ he said, slamming his hand on Sam’s shoulder as he began in the direction of his room.

Sam's eyes followed after him, then wandered to the other man lurking in the doorway.

‘Hey, you joining us, Cas?’

Cas shook his head, feeling Dean’s eyes on him from where he'd paused halfway between the kitchen and hallway.

‘No. Thank you, Sam.’

‘You sure?' Sam asked. 'You gonna be okay on your own here for a few days?’

Cas nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll be fine,’ he said, glancing between the brothers as they watched him.

‘Well, hunter’s choice,’ Dean said cheerfully, breaking their awkward silence. ‘Hey, we’ll be fine without you. Just like old times, right, Sammy?’ He craned his neck to grin at his brother.

Sam looked a little pained as he rose from the table. He shut the computer screen with a click and unplugged it from the wall, then brought it to his chest. He smiled a quick apology in Cas’ direction before he left the room to pack, leaving Cas to stand alone with nothing to do.

Cas sat in the main room, still and unfidgety, when the other two walked by, each shouldering a duffle bag and weapons carrier. Dean grunted a quick, ‘See ya, Cas,’ before he trotted up the metal steps and out the front door. Sam hesitated at the foot of the stairs, watching his brother for a moment before he shuffled over to the table, where he towered over the angel.

‘Hey, uh… you okay?’ he asked, eyeing his friend.

Cas nodded, eyes fixed on the edge of the table across from him.

Sam waited and Cas looked up until their eyes met.

‘I am fine, Sam. Thank you.’

He smiled politely. ‘Just not feeling up to it, then?’ he said, turning his chin to nod vaguely in the direction of the door.

Taking a second to understand, Cas nodded.

Hesitating briefly again, Sam nodded back. ‘Okay,’ he said as he turned back to the stairs behind him. ‘Well, if you need anything, just call,’ he called. Stopping for a moment on the stairs, he added, ‘oh, and keep the line open in case we need anything. Doesn’t sound like anything we’ve seen before, so we may need some research from home base.’

‘Of course, Sam,’ Cas said automatically.

Smiling politely and nodding again, Sam continued up the stairs. Cas sat in silence, mind empty. The front door slammed closed, its metallic clash the last sound within the bunker for hours.

He wasn’t sure what brought him there, but the next day -or night, or something like that- Cas found himself standing over the sink of one of the bathrooms. He stared at himself in the mirror. Somewhere, beyond the thick haze of exhaustion and apathy, he felt a tinge of the energy of loathing in the back of his mind.

The face itself made no impact. Cas knew there was nothing inherently unattractive about the vessel he’d stolen from the Novaks six years before, and had since continued to inhabit; but it was the idea of himself inside it, being the consciousness behind that stolen face. It was enough to make him sick with hate.

He continued to stare into the reflection. Stolen eyes narrowed from a squint to a glare, stolen stomach churned uncomfortably. He held a hand to its abdomen, leaning on the sink with the other.

The feeling itself didn't make sense. Angels weren’t meant to feel pain strongly, especially not unaccountable sickness in a vessel's stomach. He wondered if it was a side effect of his time spent human, or the incomplete restoration of his former glory. It was likely to be something of the sort, and probably had to do with the emptiness in his head.

He didn’t know what that was, either. And it wasn’t quite situated in his head. His mind was working, technically. He could think in words, even monologue internally, but there was a _something_ … a nothing, somehow, at the same time.

With feelings not nearly as acute as they'd been prior to the restoral of his grace; when he had still been, by some means, human. Yet he could feel this overwhelming sense of… something. Something bad. Something… lonely.

_Loneliness_.

And yet, how? With his closest friends a mere hour or two away, when he lived with the two people who mattered most to him. Sam had even offered his comfort a few hours before; he wasn’t lonely. Not here.

_But is that the truth?_

He looked up again, the deep blue eyes glazed over with disgust. His thoughts so vivid the reflection seemed to move. Speak.

‘If they had truly cared, would they have left you here?’

Cas looked away, at the bathroom door left wide open. He pictured one of them arriving back home, waltzing down the hallway only to find him this way. He tried to imagine what he would do. He thought of telling them, explaining what was happening. But then Dean’s voice, years old, echoed through his mind.

‘ _Nobody cares that you’re broken.’_

They wouldn’t care. They didn’t. Nobody did. Dean had been sure to let him know that.

‘It doesn’t matter that you’re broken,’ he almost heard his own voice say.

He didn’t look back in the mirror. He didn’t want to. Instead, he slid to the floor, slumped against the wall of the bathtub and let the voice speak over and over again until the blankness overwhelmed him and he felt nothing.

Hours passed. He didn't move. The position was likely uncomfortable, but vessel's sensations were dull enough to ignore. Minus the stomach pain, which had heightened considerably. And somehow been joined by the constant pull of nausea.

It’s not as if he had anything important to do, Dean had made that clear. They were fine without him. Sam hadn’t called for information on the unfamiliar case; he was utterly useless.

Beyond that, he had no other reason to move. He didn’t eat—angels don’t eat. Didn’t shower—angels don’t shower. Didn’t drink—not with an angelic tolerance high enough to outlast even a Winchester's supply of liquor.

The pain was intolerable though. He thought he might finally truly understand the reasons for their excessive alcohol— the family of alcoholics whose empty home he was now barely inhabiting, and whose time he’d taken up so much of.

If Cas had not made so many mistakes, perhaps everything wouldn't have come so close to ending, so many times. But he had a tendency for failure, a curse toxic enough to end the world. Dean had blamed so much on himself, soaked up so much shame over his life, but Castiel now knew it wasn't his fault. He’d always known, but now he seemed to understand it even more. He supposed it was it was acceptance.

He almost smiled, but he felt so tired. It was strange, because angels don’t sleep. It was one thing to miss it, to miss the blankness and ignorance of that void, but it was another to feel the need for it, when he physically couldn't. It didn’t make sense. His limbs felt far heavier than they possibly could. His mind would not work with any clarity he could vaguely recall. Time seemed to have slowed down, and his mind had slowed down with it.

Castiel had never had a problem with patience. He'd witnessed the building of oceans, erosion of mountains, the beginning and ending of so much. And its slowness had never bothered him. He could stand by and watch, wait a millennium without issue. Angels were built to withstand the slow passage of time. Patience was a virtue which came hand-in-hand with immortality. Yet now, time dragged on forever. It didn’t bore him, but it pressed down on him, and every second added pressure to the weight on his shoulders, wore away at something inside him. In a sense, he'd become impatient for it to end.

He’d felt something resembling that before: the weight of burden; the guilt and shame and wrongdoing. All that he'd done to his siblings and family. All that he's ruined of Heaven and the Earth beneath.

He wanted to die.

Then, and now again, more fiercely than before.

Years ago, it had merely been a suggestion, a way out of pain. Nothing more than a passive fear; an idea which could take hold, swallow him whole if things got bad enough.

Now, he wanted it more than he wanted to be fixed. And that fact would have scared him if his mind wasn’t so overtaken by emptiness.

Castiel wasn’t ignorant. He understood the logistics of suicide, had witnessed souls brought to Heaven by suicide. All tragic, untimely deaths.

 _But his wouldn’t be_.

He wondered if that was how each of them felt—if every soul which had sought out self-destruction considered their own ending inexorable; suicide had become an inevitability. Perhaps they all strove to escape that same coldness and emptiness which manifested inside them, that icy feeling which snaked around his abdomen, compressed it like a boa constrictor until he felt suffocated. Which didn’t make any sense, because he’s never really needed air. Not as an angel.

He closed his eyes, brought stolen palms to stolen face. So much guilt and shame ran through him it seemed impossible he could feel how he did. The vessel’s eyes burned behind its hands in an act mostly unfamiliar to him. He started to cry.

He pulled the hands away from his eyes and looked to his feet. His let gaze wander. It landed on the phone he’d left on the tiles hours ago. He remembered hoping for a phone call, waiting for a tether to reach out, keep him from drifting away.

It occurred to him how stupid that was; phone calls were bilateral.

He clicked open his phone, opened his contacts. Thumb hovering above the name, a voice echoed that taunt:

‘Nobody cares that you’re broken.’

_Nobody._

It’s not as if he hadn’t already known it, but hearing it spoken aloud had reinforced it in his mind. Especially when it had come from the one person it meant the most from.

_He didn’t matter._

_Castiel had never mattered._

Yet, for some reason Sam had told him the day before -two days before—some number of days before- that he could call, should he have to.

He selected the second name from the index, held the phone to his ear to listened patiently to the ringing. Anxiety flickered inside him and he focused his mind on the slight vibrations in his hand to alleviate it.

With every unanswered ring, his small flicker of hope diminished furthermore. Right before it died, Sam’s voice came through the small speakers and Castiel felt himself almost spring to life until he registered the words. Sam’s recorded message.

A voice mail.

He lowered the phone to his lap and ended the phone call, silencing the voice it emanated. The mantra taunted him, mocked him with a parody of its genuine presence. It sung maliciously to remind him of the absence of help; to remind him how lonely he truly was.

He sat again in silence, arms once again heavy, more than given credit to the force of gravity. His stomach felt rotten, sick with guilt. He gripped the phone more tightly, white streaks burned into his fingers.

He closed his eyes. When they reopened, he imagined Dean standing in front him, with him in the room; a witness to the pitiful sight before him.

Cas stared from the floor, the lowest he’d ever been before.

He tried, with the little energy he had, to make Dean move. He strained his mind, willing the opaque stare to something less plain; less sinister or disapproving.

Cas closed his eyes again. When he reopened them, Dean still stood stock-still in apathy.

‘Dean,’ Castiel choked out. He reached for his friend wearily.

A sharp, metallic clatter wrenched him from his thoughts. His eyes snapped to the blade, buzzing lightly on the tiles, shocked from the fall. He dropped his arm, let his hand fall into familiar position, over the warm patch in the handle.

He looked back to Dean whose face had pulled into an almost-smile. A faint trace of happiness washed over Cas, and for a moment he remembered those words Dean had told him weeks ago.

‘You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.’

_Maybe, just maybe, he did care after all._

Within that brief flicker of hope, Cas turned on the phone once again. The contacts list burned into his eyes, waiting. The soft vibrations tickled his ear as the phone rung, delivering his last hope, reaching for something to hold onto.

The phone's ringing echoed stark against the silence of the bunker, the silence of his heart, with every attempt, on and on again. With each unanswered cry, his final, _final_ hope evaporated until it was lost in the air, and the Dean that stood in front of him, now staring down with disdain, spoke to him again.

‘I don’t care that you’re broken.’

Cas looked away, unable to face his friend. His hand closed around the blade and he lifted it up until it lay in his lap. When the answering machine finally came through, Dean's voice nothing but a robotic echo, Cas didn't have the energy or will to beg. He half-listened to his friend’s voice for the last time, zoned out until the silence came.

He took a deep breath.

Dean was a friend, at least a little, so deep down, he and his brother might actually feel sad to find him a dead vessel slumped against the tiles of their bathroom.

So rather than asking for help, rather than burdening them with yet another responsibility, perhaps all he really needed was to offer an explanation. Maybe it would give them comfort. This was Castiel's last responsibility.

He mustered up courage, enough to get complete his last mission. He spoke into the small phone against his ear, gravelly voice stark against the quiet of the bunker, echoing slightly as it ricocheted off the tiles.

‘Hello, Dean,' he said. 'Do you remember when I told you that I thought I might kill myself?’

‘I am going to do it now.’

**Author's Note:**

> All comments/kudos are _greatly_ appreciated.


End file.
